Poetry: Selections from John Grochalski

poem in which i have thoughts while i prepare to go running at forty-seven in twenty-degree weather

 

li po died while

drunkenly trying to hug the moon

 

good ol’ kerouac’s esophagus burst

 

i can smell last night’s vodka and wine on my breath

as i sit here putting on

a steelers hoodie and sweatpants

 

we do things but we don’t often stop

to wonder why we do them

 

men my age go gray and get fat

 

i have done both

yet still i lace my sneakers and stretch

 

moan from the soreness

coming from my back and legs

 

rudimentary getting ready to exhaust myself

in the name of vanity and pigheadedness

 

for christ’s sake

the sun has yet to rise in the sky!

 

my god

and why oh why?

 

when is it enough

to just become old and useless?

 

take a bow

and fade into the void

with a bag of doritos and a sixer of the high life?

 

extoll the virtues

of sitcoms and super hero movies?

 

the healthy life is nonsense

 

especially with capitalism

and toxic masculinity

trying to do us all in every day

 

it makes no sense to fight the tide of anything

 

aging

or america

 

to go outside

running at age forty-seven

in twenty-degrees

 

dodging cars and high school kids who laugh at me

 

praying i don’t trip and fall

break something or smash my wrinkled face

 

who am i doing this for?

 

haven’t i lived and loved and traveled

and made what i could of the good years?

 

a downslope

is a downslope for a reason

 

and there’s always a pill

for this

or this

or that

 

it makes no sense

to put this snowcap on

or these gloves

 

cue up motivational music

or some podcast

 

i want to go back to bed with a bottle of anything

and watch the sun dance across my ceiling all day

 

i’ve been sold a lie

and you’ve been sold a lie

 

but i’ll see you out there on the street, my friend

 

red-faced

and huffing and puffing

nodding as we pass each other

 

middle-aged morons exercising in the morning

before going off to get fucked over by work

 

busting our precious bodies

thinking we’re doing it right

 

living our best

one mile down

two miles to go

 

fools!

fools!

fools!

 

racing toward nothing

but our own exhaustion

 

and eventual death.

stupid guero

 

we are incongruous to our core

 

you speak in a tongue

meant to immolate me

 

while i stare at a wall

 

like it’s a hobby

put there to pass the time

 

america hates us both

in entirely different ways

 

we both have the paystubs to prove it

 

there should be

more love in this world, i think

 

irrevocable violence

gets too dull

 

yet you call me a stupid guero

and shake your fist in vengeance

 

storm off out the swinging doors

like a cartoon cowboy

 

as my ass itches

the sun passes to the other wall

 

and no matter our quarrel

 

the alarm clocks

will still ring

 

for both of us

to do this again tomorrow

 

pal.

true worth

 

sitting here

in this small office

 

of white walls

and insanity

 

at this small desk

of despair

 

full of breadcrumbs

left for midnight mice

 

my precious time

exchanged for money

 

to pay my bills

and rent on a place i’m barely at

 

i stare down at the cockroach traps

 

badly hidden under

heating vents

 

and feel

reminded

 

yet again

of this world’s idea

 

of my true value

my true worth.

poem to the man idling in his car getting yelled at by his woman

 

human bonds

can be so fragile

 

or they can be thick like iron chains

 

clamped down on your soul

and inescapable

 

save death

 

and she is the theatrical kind this morning

 

standing outside the car shouting

waving her arms like an orchestra conductor

 

stamping her feet

 

a sweating, ghoulish she-hulk

in a sunkist t-shirt and wrap around shades

 

you had time to take

the kids to school this morning

but you’re just leaving me on a street corner

to take a bus?

 

all of us sacks of shit

stumbling off to work

know your cardinal sin now, buddy.

 

that you didn’t just drive off

makes you an idiot or a saint in my book

 

life is never enough

for the people who find themselves

entwined in our own

 

people are bloodsuckers by nature

 

imagine our contentment

if we were molded to be alone

and simply stare at walls?

 

and you’ve been idling here too long

serving her demented pleasures

 

i don’t know how

you’re getting out of this now

 

maybe try buddhism

 

or reminiscing on when you and she

were young and liked to fuck

 

and i can’t stick around

to find out your fate

 

the love song of capitalism calls to me too

 

the ethereal hymn

of lost hours and wasted years

 

so good luck

god speed

 

and for the record, my friend

that bus stop she’s been bitching about?

 

it’s literally less than

a block away.

blizzard

 

at the window

i watch a street full of them

 

deranged fools

in heavy jackets and hats

 

shoveling the snow

that has still not stopped falling

 

dutiful and insane

they pick up white mounds

 

to dump on piles

that will only blow back on them

 

repopulate the space

that they just cleared

 

and they are dumbfounded by this

 

they scrape and scrape

at snowdrifts anew

 

as cars skid down the street

garbage can lids go rolling by

electric power lines quake in the breeze

 

and i put back the curtains

to have a glass of cheap red wine

 

in the pale quiet

before noon.

John Grochalski is the author of the poetry collections, The Noose Doesn’t Get Any Looser After You Punch Out (Six Gallery Press 2008), Glass City (Low Ghost Press, 2010), In the Year of Everything Dying (Camel Saloon, 2012), Starting with the Last Name Grochalski (Coleridge Street Books, 2014), The Philosopher’s Ship (Alien Buddha Press, 2018), and Eating a Cheeseburger During End Times (Kung Fu Treachery, 2021). He is also the author of the novels, The Librarian (Six Gallery Press 2013), Wine Clerk (Six Gallery Press 2016), and P-Town: Forever (Alien Buddha Press, 2021). Grochalski currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. You can read his baseball card ramblings at Junk Wax Jay